Not Letting Go
by Bleachhead88
Summary: Ishida is captured and no one knows where he has gone or who has him.  As Ichigo and friends search, the last of the Quincy is put through hell. Ichigo-Ishida friendship only. AU
1. Chapter 1

A/n: Hello and welcome to my first Bleach fic. Sadly I have no beta but I hope that it turned out all right. Also, I, for some strange reason, really love Ishida whump fics. Thus, this and the next one that I'm working on editing have come into being. If you don't like this, I suggest turning back now.

Finally, there is really no set time line placement for this as I'm a fair bit behind in the episodes so that's why I have it marked AU.

Oh yeah, and I do not own Bleach and I'm sure Ishida is quite glad for that fact.

Chapter 1

It was nearly a full moon over Karakura town as Ishida Uryuu hopped from roof top to roof top, patrolling the city for any hollow activity. He had had trouble sleeping, so he decided that he would head out and try to work off some of his restlessness. Ichigo had been losing a lot of sleep lately because of the hollows that had been appearing so frequently at night. Ishida figured he might as well help his friend out by being ready to take care of the next hollow before Ichigo was called from bed. But so far, there hadn't been any sign of hollow activity.

Ishida was just thinking about calling it a night when suddenly a hand shot up from the edge of the roof below him and grabbed his ankle. He fell hard onto the roof top and found that he was unable to move. He could feel that his ankle had been pierced by something and he suspected that it was some sort of paralyzing drug.

A woman's voice drifted down to him as a foot in a heeled shoe crossed into his field of vision. "You certainly are an interesting human. What are you?"

Movement was already beginning to return to Ishida as he rolled over and then very stiffly climbed back onto his feet. "Ishida Uryuu, Quincy," he said as he summoned his bow. His muscles were still far too slow to react as the woman suddenly launched herself at him again, stabbing him in the neck with her nails.

His muscles stopped working again and he fell backward heavily, striking his head on the roof and knocking him out. "A Quincy?" the woman said almost in awe as she bent over his unmoving form. "Who would have thought my luck?" She reached down and scooped him up as if he weighed nothing and then carried him off into the night.

XXX

Ishida slowly opened his eyes and let out a slight groan as he came back around. The first thing he noticed was how incredibly weak he felt. Everything in his body ached and he felt as if he had just run a marathon, took out a hoard of hollows, and had been awake for several days to do so. The next thing he noticed was that he couldn't move.

It wasn't because of how weak he felt, though he doubted that he could have managed much movement because of that. It wasn't the drug still in his system either. But as he tried to move, he realized that his arms, legs, and head were restrained in very cold metal brackets that rattled slightly as he tried to shift.

He found that he was half lying, half sitting in a slightly reclined chair. Braces flipped up on the arms of the chair and held his wrists in place there. Two more braces were fitted over his ankles further down what felt like a wooden chair. His head was held back against the head rest by another brace that fitted over his forehead.

He tried to look around him, but the brace of his head was preventing him from turning his neck. All that he could see within his peripheral vision was the edge of a table to his right. Sticking off the edge of the table, though, was something that he recognized and didn't like that it was over there. It was a loop of his belt that held his five Seele Schneiders.

After seeing that, he noticed that there was something noticeably absent from his person besides that belt. It was his Quincy cross. He hadn't been without some variation of a charm ever since his grandfather had given him one when he was still quite young. It was a very disconcerting feeling to be without one now.

"So, Quincy," the smooth voice of the woman that had attacked him said from across the dimly lit room. "You're awake again."

"Who are you?" he said as he tried again to move his head to see her, but he wasn't able to turn it. He suddenly felt a rush of dizziness with the effort that he had used to try and move. He wondered if maybe he was feeling like this from the blow to the head that he had taken. Maybe he had gotten a concussion.

But that didn't seem quite right. He had had a concussion before, and although it did make him feel weak, it had been accompanied with a horrible headache and nausea. He didn't have either of those symptoms. And this weakness seemed to reach even deeper than his muscles. It was as if the strength was being leached right out of his body.

"Oh, you can simply call me Mistress," the woman said as she finally came into view. She stood over Ishida and looked down at him. She was actually quite beautiful. She was shapely with long, curly blond hair and sparkling green eyes. But it was the cold look in those eyes that betrayed her true nature. "I'm sure you're wondering what is going on, aren't you?"

"The thought did cross my mind," he told her coolly.

She laughed as him as she clapped her hands together. "My, you are quite energetic for where you are right now. I would say that you really are exactly what I have been looking for."

"And what is that?"

She smiled as him and leaned down so that her lips were just barely hovering above his ear. "Food," she whispered to him.

His eyes grew in size at what she said. He was completely at her mercy right now. If she decided to kill him right now, there was going to be nothing that he could do about it.

She snaked an arm across his body then and he tried to keep an eye on it, but lost sight of it as her hand dipped below the edge of the other side of his chair. He heard a slight scraping noise and then her hand returned, now holding a vial that was partly filled with a glowing blue liquid.

"Do you know what this is, Quincy?" she asked him as she held it up in front of his face.

He stared at it a moment before he gave a surprised gasp. "Reiatsu," he said.

"Not only that," she said as she brought her other hand over and carefully pulled the rubber stopper out of the vial. "But it is your reiatsu, Quincy." With that she brought the vial to her lips and then quickly tipped her head back as if she were drinking a shot.

Ishida stared back up at her with a stunned expression as her eyes drifted closed and a look of ecstasy spread over her features. She slowly opened her eyes again after a moment and looked back down at him. "That is the food that I wish to take from you. And you, being a Quincy, will supply me with far more than any other I have ever encountered before could."

"What do you mean?"

"You have a nearly endless supply. If you get too low, you can draw on the spirit particles in the air to create more. As long as both you and I are careful, we could continue our relationship for a very…" she leaned in closer to him so that her face was almost touching his. "…Very long time," she leaned down further and brushed her lips against his.

He tried to move away from her, but there was no where to go. She crushed her lips even tighter against his and sucked his lip into her mouth. Before he could even attempt to fight against her, she bit down on the inside of his lower lip enough to draw a drop of blood with she quickly sucked into her own mouth and swallowed it before releasing him and standing up again.

"I'll leave you for now, Quincy. But I'll introduce you to the rest of the girls in a little while." With that she turned and then walked out of his field of vision. He could hear the click clack of her heels on the wooden floor as she retreated from the room. The door gave a loud metal squeak and then clanged shut with finality once she had gone.

Ishida shivered where he sat as full realization of his predicament came to him. She had been partly right. He could draw in spirit particles from the air to supplement his dwindling reiatsu, but he had to have at least some of his own spirit pressure to mix with those particles to be able to use it like that. If he allowed his own reiatsu to get too low, there would be nothing that he would be able to do to keep himself alive.

But that meant that he was going to have to keep constantly adjusting his own internal spirit pressure and make sure that he didn't stop taking in those spirit particles for very long at a time. He had to consciously choose to draw in the particles, so if he fell asleep for too long, he could die.

He couldn't just take in a surplus of particles to last a while either. That wouldn't do any good because he wouldn't have enough reiatsu to mix with it so it would only go to waste and potentially cause him harm. He didn't know what a surplus of spirit particles would do to him if he couldn't immediately release them in the form of his arrows. It could cause internal damage.

"Kurosaki," he whispered into the dimly lit room. "I could use your help right now."

XXX

Ichigo suddenly woke up in his bed and looked around. He thought that he had just heard a voice, but there was no one else in his room. "Kon?" he called, thinking maybe it was the mod soul. But there was no answer. Then he remembered that Kon had been taken by Yuzu again and was probably locked up in her room down the hall.

He felt momentary sympathy for the mod soul and thought maybe he should go and see if he could rescue the plushy while Yuzu was sleeping. But then he heard a slight click against the glass of his window. He turned and looked at it just as another pebble came up and clicked against the pane.

Reaching over, he lifted his window up and looked outside. He was surprised to see Inoue standing out there, bending over to pick up another pebble.

"Inoue?" he softly called down to her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed as she straightened up and dropped the pebble that was in her hand in her hand. "Kurosaki-kun."

"Inoue, what's wrong? Why are you here?" he asked as he climbed out of his window and gently dropped to the ground to stand beside her.

"Oh, ah, well…" she said looking both worried and embarrassed at the same time. "You see, Kurosaki-kun, I was worried about Ishida-kun."

"Ishida?" Ichigo said. "Why? What has he gotten into?"

"I don't know," she said as she brushed a piece of hair from her neck and then looked up at him with pleading eyes as if she were afraid that he wouldn't believe her. "I just sensed him, not far from my apartment a while ago. But then, all of a sudden, I couldn't sense him anymore."

Ichigo rubbed the back of his neck as he thought about this. "He is pretty good at hiding his reiatsu, maybe he just did that," he suggested. But Inoue shook her head.

"No," she said. "Even when he does that I can still sense him if I concentrate. It's the same for you and Sado-kun too. But no matter how hard I try to find him, I can't."

Ichigo frowned at her and then nodded. He reached down and grabbed the badge that was hanging from a loop on his pajama pants. He slapped it against his chest and was suddenly standing next to Inoue in his Shinigami form while his body crumpled lifelessly to the ground. "Alright, Inoue. Let me stash my body and we'll go see if we can find him."

She smiled at him as he grabbed his body and went over to hide it in the bushes below his window. "Ok," he said when that was done. He turned to her and asked, "Now, where did you last sense him?"

She told him and he gently grabbed her and they were off into the night air, searching for clues of where their Quincy friend had disappeared to.

XXX

"So girls, what do you think?" the woman only known to Ishida as Mistress asked the group of five girls that were now gathered around The Quincy.

"He's not much to look at," one of them pouted as she stared down at him.

"Oh, I don't know," another said. "I think there is a certain charm to him." She winked at Ishida. He felt another wave of revulsion for these women come over him. But Mistress had tied a gag in his mouth so he wasn't able to reply to any of the repulsive things that they had to say about him.

"It doesn't matter what he looks like, Astrid," a third woman said as she reached down and grabbed Ishida's right hand. She pinched the space between his thumb and forefinger hard enough to cause him to gasp in pain. "He seems to be quite hardy," she said as she released her hold.

"That is the point, girls," Mistress said. "With this one, we might be able to keep from having to grab anyone for a while. And you know what that means, don't you girls?"

"We won't have to move so fast!" one said. She appeared to be the youngest of them all. Though really none of them appeared to be past their late twenties and it was Mistress that was the oldest in appearance.

"Exactly, Valorie!" she exclaimed. "One missing person won't be enough to draw _their_ attention. But if we have to take more, we can't stay in one place for very long."

"So how long do you think this one will last?" the one that had pinched him asked.

"I'm not sure. But look at him, he's been in the chair for hours now and hardly looks any worse than when I first grabbed him."

Ishida certainly felt quite a bit worse, but he knew that he was probably doing much better than any other victim that had been taken before because he had already started to rely on his Quincy powers to keep his reiatsu at an acceptable level. Anyone else wouldn't have been able to do that.

"You are right, Mistress," the woman that had not spoken yet said. She came to stand over Ishida now and looked him directly in the eye. None of the other women had done this other than Mistress. He was a little startled by the force of her gaze. If he didn't know better, Ishida would never have thought that this woman would be capable of anything like this. Her eyes spoke of a gentle soul, not one that kidnapped people and drained them of their reiatsu to the point of death.

"This boy will be very good for us," she said and then turned and walked away. The other women took their cue from her and followed her out of the room. Once they were gone, Mistress reached down and untied the gag and took it out of his mouth.

"You hear that, Quincy? You're going to be very good for us."

"What are you?" he asked her after he swallowed a few time to moisten his mouth again. Even still his voice came out slightly raspy.

She giggled at him and then sat at the edge of his chair as she looked down at him. "We are known as Druden. You probably have never heard of us because we come from Europe. We have been forced to migrate this far to avoid the notice of those that would hunt us."

"Druden…" Ishida said as he thought about it. He thought that he might have heard the term before. "From German myth, correct?" he asked.

Her eyes grew wide as she nodded. "So," she said. "You have heard of us then. You are quite full of surprises, Quincy. What have you heard of us?"

He tired to shake his head before he realized that he couldn't. "Not much," he said. "I just remember that they were some form of witch in German tales."

"Well the tales have most of it wrong," she said with a huff as she turned her head away from him. "The tales speak of an ugly old woman that sneaks into houses at night and kills its victims by sitting on their chest in their sleep and compressing them to death. Of course this is all ridiculous."

"But you probably did start off by appearing to kill while a person was sleeping without leaving any mark or other sign of death," Ishida said. "The rest is what the superstitious minds of the time and area came up with."

"You are very perceptive, Quincy. I didn't expect to find you interesting as well as useful."

He ignored her a moment and pressed on. "So what is it that you really do?" he asked.

"Well, first of all, I'm sure you have noticed that we are not old and ugly." She paused and looked at him expecting some kind of response. When he didn't give her one, she let out another huff before continuing. "We are able to drink a person's reiatsu directly," she said. "That is what we did for centuries. But that always kills our victim right away. Once we discovered this certain metal that those cuffs are made from that leaches reiatsu from a body, we found that we were able to drain our victims of much more reiatsu before they expired."

"Slowly torture them to death rather than a quick kill," Ishida said darkly.

She turned to him and gave him an unabashed grin. "Something like that. You see, the shock to the system of a sudden drain of spiritual energy is what killed them before. Once they are dead, their spirit leaves the body along with any remaining energy. This way of slowly drawing it from a body keeps the victim alive long enough to retrieve the very last dregs of what they have to offer."

"But it also means that there are going to be many missing persons in the area in which you settle, causing a certain amount of alarm in a community."

"This is true. And that alarm is what draws the attention of the Jäger, a group that has sworn to slay all of our kind. So, to keep from drawing their attention, we move on after a short time to another place."

"But I will allow you to stay put for a while," Ishida summed up. "You're going to slowly drain every last drop of my reiatsu, using me like a rechargeable battery, until I can't manage to hold a charge any longer."

"That's right," she said as she stood up and smiled down at him. "And, Ishida, I don't care what those girls think, you are quite hansom to me." She leaned down and kissed him again, but this time it was swift and bloodless. With that finished, she turned and left the room.

Ishida lay there a few more moments thinking over everything that he had just heard. If there really were people out that that were hunting these Druden, it might be possible that they would have at least tracked the girls to Karakura already. But if they didn't return to kidnapping people, then there wouldn't be anyway for these hunters to track them here.

He took a deep breath and then tried to press against the restraints as hard as he could. But no matter how hard he pushed, or how much energy he took into his body to help him, he could not manage to so much as loosen the cuffs. He stopped after a few moments and sat there gasping.

He had been right, taking in too many spirit particles was not only a waste, but he could feel it burning his insides. He was glad that he had just experimented with only taking a small amount more than he knew he could currently process. If he had taken more, he would be in a lot more pain and possibly have even injured himself. He sighed in exasperation at his own inadequacy. There was nothing that he could do like this. His only hope now was to stay alive long enough for either those Jäger or his friends to find him.

XXX

Ichigo let out a yawn as he and Inoue approached Urahara's shop. Dawn was just breaking over Karakura town when the shop came into view.

"I'm sorry, Kurosaki-kun," Inoue said as she noticed his yawn. "I've kept you out all night."

"No, it's all right," Ichigo told her. "You were right to get me. We haven't been able to find any trace of Ishida. I'm starting to get quite worried myself. Hopefully Urahara has some ideas for us."

Inoue nodded and quickened her pace slightly towards the shop. Ichigo matched her pace and soon they were standing outside of the closed shop. Inoue walked up to the door and tapped lightly upon it. There was no response.

"We don't have time for this," Ichigo said and stepped up and grabbed the door. It was locked but he shoved it open anyway, breaking the lock in process.

"Kurosaki-kun…" Inoue said as she hung back and stared at the broken door while Ichigo marched inside.

"Hurry up, Inoue," he called back to her.

She took another look at the door and then charged in behind him.

"You! What are you doing here?" Jinta's voice met them as he jumped into the doorway from the shop to the rest of the house.

"Where's Urahara?" Ichigo demanded even as he tried to push past Jinta. The kid wasn't in the mood to be pushed around just then though and surprised Ichigo by shoving him back. "The boss is still asleep," he snapped. "And what are you doing breaking into our place anyway?"

"Please, Jinta-kun," Inoue said as she came forward. "We need to speak with Urahara-san. We think something has happened to Ishida-kun."

"Oh dear," Urahara's voice said from the next room just before he appeared in the doorway behind Jinta. "Our Quincy friend has run into some trouble?" he asked.

"We can't find him," Ichigo said. "Inoue felt his reiatsu disappear last night and we have been looking for him ever since."

"My, my, perhaps you should come in and explain it all to me," he said as he turned and walked back into the house. "Jinta, why don't you make us some tea?"

The boy scowled up at Ichigo but stepped out of their way and went to do as he was told.

Ichigo and Inoue followed Urahara into the living room and sat down around the table. "Now," Urahara said. "Why don't you start at the beginning…?"

A/n: End of part one of a three parter. Tune in next week for Chapter two. Things are going to get a whole lot worse...


	2. Chapter 2

A/n: Welcome back. Thank you to those that have favorited and reviewed so far. This chapter is the reason that I decided to rate the story at M. It does get rather violent. So hold on and here we go!

Chapter 2

Ishida was sure he had never felt this horrible before. He was hardly able to sleep at all trying to simply keep himself alive. He knew that he had been there for days, possibly even weeks, but time just seemed to run together for him. They fed him whenever they remembered that he needed to eat and drink, which was far less often than he would like.

At first, he thought maybe this would be a good thing. If he lost a lot of weight, maybe he would be able to slip right out of the restraints. But even though he knew he was getting thinner, the cuffs always seemed just as tight as when he had first found himself in that chair. It seemed that the metal contracted with his body, cutting off even that small glimmer of hope that he had.

He was having a harder and harder time regulating his own spirit pressure the longer that he was kept there. The constant drain was becoming difficult to keep up with. He feared that any time he fell asleep, he wouldn't wake up again. Or, he would wake up only to find that he didn't have enough reiatsu left to draw any more spirit particles in and he would be dead in a matter of minutes.

Because of this fear, he had been sleeping less and less. And it was necessary for him to sleep less anyway because he had to draw in an almost constant supply of spirit particles now to keep himself alive.

Between the draw on his spirit energy and the lack of food and sleep, he felt like he was about to completely fall apart at any moment. He knew that, even if he was able to slip out of the restraints right now, he wouldn't so much as be able to make it to the door before he collapsed. Just managing enough strength to move at those very embarrassing times when they allowed him to relieve himself was almost more than he could do.

Every so often, one of the women would remove all of his restraints but his left wrist and hand him a bucket. The first time that they had done this, he had tried to free himself the rest of the way, but the woman that was there then, the youngest one, Valorie, simply reached out and stabbed him in the neck with one of her fingernails. The next thing he knew he went limp and she strapped right back in the chair.

Now, he couldn't even think about an escape plan when those times came because there wasn't an ounce of spare energy for him to even attempt it. Bit by bit, his will to keep on going was fading. He knew just how easy it would be to simply stop even trying to keep himself alive; Just to let go and drift away would end the nightmare. It would only take two, maybe three hours, and he would be drained past the point of no return. It would end all of this suffering and constant humiliation.

Still, that was not in his nature. No matter how horrible things got, no matter how much suffering he had to endure, he couldn't just give up. He had lost all hope of getting himself out of this situation long ago. But there was always that glimmer of hope that someone might come for him. He knew how desperately his friends had to be searching for him even now. He knew that, somewhere out there, there were the Jäger that chased these women. He knew that if he could just hold on a little longer, something would happen. Something was going to change and he would be free from this hell.

But not only holding onto that glimmer of hope kept him going. The other thought that kept him struggling for each breath was what would happen if he did die. If he gave up and allowed himself to die, then these women would be forced to find another victim. As long as they had him, they didn't need to harm anyone else. It was his prolonged suffering that was keeping some other innocent person alive.

Anytime he thought about giving up, he just thought about the people that he knew that would be in danger if the Druden needed another victim. They would definitely want someone with a higher amount of spiritual energy and that put all of his friends in harms way. Ichigo and probably Chad would be able to defend themselves he was sure; but the thought of Inoue in this same place was more than enough to give him the will to keep living.

Just then the door opened, causing Ishida to cringe. He had grown to both despise and anticipate that sound. He hated to see the women come and gather his reiatsu or have Mistress leave him with one of her disgusting kisses. But they could also be coming to give him food or water or, even though it was still humiliating, the ability to relieve himself was also always welcome.

He was a bit surprised when a face that he hadn't seen since that first day appeared above him. It was the woman that he had thought had kind eyes. She had a soft, round face that was neatly framed by chestnut curls. But she looked down at him now in a way that did not appear kind at all. It was a strange hungry look much like what he saw in Mistress's eyes when she looked at him, but there was something different about it.

"How are you, Quincy?" she asked. Even though her eyes were no longer kind, her tone still matched the one that he had first heard.

He licked his lips and struggled a moment for the strength to form words before he answered. "Been better."

She smiled down at him with a kind smile, but it didn't reach those eyes. "I can imagine. No one has ever lasted as long as you have. Do you know how long you have been with us?"

He blinked and then said, "No."

"Almost three weeks now, Quincy."

Part of Ishida was surprised by this, but part of him had known that it had to have been in the area of weeks. He simply accepted that that was the case and continued to stare back at her.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked as she came to stand over his left side.

"No," he said.

"My name is Hilda. I am the Mistress's first born daughter. Do you know how it is that we Druden reproduce?"

Ishida didn't like the path that this conversation was going. He also didn't like that she kept getting closer to him and that look of need was growing in her eyes. "No," he heard himself nearly whisper.

"There comes a time for each Druden when she is driven to feed even more than normal," Hilda said as she leaned in closer to him. "Normally, this means that she will be forced to go through several victims. Also, she has to feed in the way that we originally had fed. Drinking the energy that the spirit metal siphons off will not be enough to satisfy her."

Ishida couldn't help feel a tremble through his spine as she got even closer to him. Her lips were now hovering just over his ear as she explained these things to him. "After she has eaten as much as she can possibly stand, she takes that extra energy from all of those victims and blends it with her own. That much raw spiritual energy forms a new life inside of her that only takes a few days to mature enough to be born."

Her lips were now nuzzled up against Ishida's ear. She took a hold of his lobe in her lips and sucked at it a moment. He could feel his breath quickening as he realized what was about to happen. He didn't think that he would be able to survive the amount of spirit draining that she was talking about in his current condition. If she did this, all of his suffering and struggles to stay alive would be for nothing.

"After that," she continued as she released his ear lobe. "The child will appear to be a girl of about sixteen in only a few more days. Just think, Ishida, in the space of a week, you'll be a father of a fully mature daughter. And you, above any other that we have ever fed upon, may actually live to see her."

Hilda's hand reached down then and undid the clasps for both of Ishida's wrists and then his forehead. She gave him a strange smile that only served to unnerve him even more when she reached down and undid the clasps as his ankles. "That's better now, isn't it?" she asked as she took his hands from the arms on the chair. She raised both of the arms up out of the way before she crawled on top of Ishida, draping her legs on either side of his chest.

He tried to struggle free from her. He placed his hands on her abdomen and pushed with all of his strength, but it wasn't enough to so much as budge her in the slightest. "Now, now," she said as she leaned down so that her forehead touched his. "You can't fight this, Quincy. A Druden in heat is an unstoppable force. Even if you were at full strength, it is unlikely that you would be able to shake me. Just relax and hopefully this will all be over soon."

Her hands reached up then and gripped either side of his head. He could feel her long fingernails burrowing into his hair just before they stabbed into his scalp. He gasped and tried to cry out, but as he did so, her lips came down and locked with his own, cutting off his scream. Instantly, he knew that the slow drain of metal restraints that he had been subjected to had been nothing to the wrenching devouring of his energy that this direct contact was capable of doing. Even as he tried to feebly fight her off even though he had now been paralyzed by her venom, to get away from her agony, he knew exactly why it was that something like this could kill a victim instantly, even before all of their reiatsu was consumed.

He tried to scream, tried to fight her, tried to do anything to break that agonizing contact between them, but there was nothing he could do. As she drew in vast amounts of his spirit energy, he could feel his body becoming more and more unresponsive. His skin was beginning to feel tight and dry. He could feel each of his ribs poking into his chest and realized that she was sucking the life right out of him, not only depleting his spiritual energy, but his physical as well.

How long she sat there and sucked at his soul, he couldn't say. Each second was pure hell and it seemed to drag on for an eternity. He had never experienced something so violent in all of his life. When he thought that he couldn't endure another moment of it, that he was going to die that very second, she gave a cry and then sucked even harder at him.

He didn't die. He couldn't understand how he was able to endure this torment. She was keening now as she bit down into his lip and sucked at not only his energy, but his blood as well. Ishida could feel the moist tracks of tears spilling from his eyes as he prayed for it all to end. He didn't care how it ended anymore. He would have preferred death to this. But he just wouldn't die!

He felt a sudden shudder run through Hilda's body then as she crushed her body even tighter to his own. He screamed into her mouth as she drew one more monstrous gulp of his life energy from his lips.

The moment that her lips broke contact with Ishida's his body gave a pitiful shudder and collapsed back against the chair, limp as a rag doll. Slowly, Hilda climbed off of him and then stared down at the decimated Quincy. She had drained him nearly completely. He now looked like an old, wrinkled man except for the fact that his hair was still raven black. His body had shrunk and his skin shriveled up and he didn't appear to be so much as breathing. "Poor Quincy," she said to him in such a kind voice that if anyone had heard her, would have thought she was completely sincere. "I have never felt such a rush and it would be a shame for you to have suffered so much to die now."

She leaned back over him and pushed his lips apart again. Hovering her own lips just above his, she let out a soft breath. A blue glow transferred from her mouth into his. With a sudden gasp, Ishida jerked in the chair, opening his eyes again.

"There you are, Quincy," she said to him as she stood up straight again. "It turns out I had a little extra to spare. You won't die… not just yet anyway."

She reached into a pocket and pulled out two stripes of fabric. "You may just live for a while yet if we don't try draining you right away again," she said. She lowered the armrests of the chair again and took each of his unresisting hands. Using the fabric, she tied his wrists to the chair rather than using the metal cuffs.

"There," she said. "I doubt that you would be able to get out of that chair anyway, but just in case…"

He stared up at her without being able to say anything. Tears had begun to spill from his eyes again but he was so weak now that he didn't even know why. He didn't know anything anymore other than the extreme weakness and pain that radiated through his body. He probably wouldn't even be able to remember his own name at that moment if he tried to think of it. There were no thoughts left in his head. All he knew was that he was alive and he wished that he wasn't.

"Now," she said. "We shall see if you survive. If you do, then I will bring my daughter to see you in a week. Thank you, Ishida Uryuu," she said and then turned and left him alone once again.

And still, the only response that he could give was tears and he didn't even know why.

XXX

Ichigo came into Urahara's shop and collapsed on the floor of the living room. He was worn out, body, mind, and soul. It had been three weeks since their friend had gone missing and they had all been searching for any clue as to where he could have gone but to no result.

Urahara's had become a base of operations for them over the weeks. The ex-Shinigami had been trying to help as much as possible. He had sent Yoruichi into Soul Society multiple times to see if there were any clues on that end to turn up. He had delved into his own vast supply of documents and research that could possibly explain such a disappearance, but nothing was turned up.

Inoue had asked several days into their search very meekly if it were possible that Ishida had been killed. None of them wanted to hear that, but it was something that they needed to consider. But, after Urahara had questioned Inoue extensively about what she had sensed that night, he was convinced that Ishida was still alive; at least, he was when he had gone missing.

_"You say that you could sense him one moment and then next he was gone?" Urahara had asked Inoue._

_ She nodded to him._

_ "Then I very much doubt that he was killed. I think that you would be sensitive enough to his reiatsu to have sensed if it had slowly faded away instead of just vanished. Someone who dies doesn't lose their reiatsu all together immediately. There is a moment where, to most that are able to sense reiatsu, it would seem that it completely disappears. But for those more sensitive to such things, it first feels like it drops to almost nothing and the last bit slowly fades away. That's because it takes a moment for a person to actually die. There is a moment when their body expires, but the soul isn't released until brain death occurs. That could be several seconds or minutes depending on what happened." Urahara explained to them._

_ Inoue looked up at him with a small amount of hope and asked, "So, because his reiatsu simply vanished from my senses…?"_

_ He nodded to her. "…it is more likely that someone just masked his reiatsu from even you. It would take some very special skill or a lot of power to be able to do so, but that is the most likely scenario."_

Ichigo replayed that conversation in his head as he sat there in the corner of the shop and fought against his own feelings of hopelessness. How long were they supposed search like this? How long before they were forced to let Ishida go?

"Three weeks," he said to himself. "Anything could have happened to him in three weeks…"

He wished that Rukia was there with them. She had wanted to come back to the human world when she had heard from Yoruichi that Ishida had gone missing, but there was something going on in Soul Society that required her help and she couldn't leave. In fact, Ichigo had been asked for, but he wouldn't leave. He wasn't about to abandon his friend so that he could go and get involved in the craziness that was Soul Society's problems again.

He growled in frustration as he turned on his side and slammed his fist into the floor. He left a dent in the floor boards where he had hit. "Please don't create any more damage to my place, Ichigo," Urahara said as he walked in and sat down at the table to examine another report that he had dug up from somewhere.

Ichigo turned and looked at him and sighed again in frustration. "I just can't believe that we can't even turn up a single clue!"

"I know this, Ichigo," Urahara said without taking his eyes out of the report. "But breaking my house will not help us find him any faster."

Ichigo looked at the older man and saw the dark circles that had appeared under his eyes over the last few days… Well, darker circles than the shadow from his ever present hat cast anyways. This sight somewhat surprised Ichigo. He had never known Urahara to get tired or appear the least bit out of sorts. To see that Urahara was so invested in this investigation that he looked like that said more about the seriousness of the situation than anything else to Ichigo.

And still there was nothing to show for their efforts. Ichigo got up and was about to go back out. To do what, he wasn't sure, but he couldn't stand just staying there with absolutely nothing to do while his friend was out there except for wonder about what was happening to him.

"Kisuke!" Yoruichi's voice called from the next room.

Ichigo paused on his exit and waited for her to appear. Urahara also sat down his report and looked up towards the doorway that Yoruichi had called from. A moment later she walked into the room with a man behind her. "Kisuke," she said again. "I think that I might have found someone that could help us."

Ichigo turned his full attention to the man that was standing behind Yoruichi. He was a tall, muscular man dressed all in black. Ichigo could tell that he was from Soul Society and was someone that a normal human would not be able to perceive here, but he also wasn't a Shinigami.

He stood over a foot above Yoruichi and had blond hair that hung down past his shoulders and a beard that hung down to the center of his chest with a piece of black string tying it in the center to keep it gathered. His light blue eyes looked over Yoruichi's head and met Ichigo's own.

"This is Hans," Yoruichi said. "He is part of a group called the Jäger. He has an interesting story to tell you."

Hans pulled his eyes from Ichigo and looked at Urahara and inclined his head to the ex-Shinigami. "Please," Urahara said as he gestured to the table. "Have a seat."

Yoruichi walked in and sat beside Urahara, allowing Hans to enter and sit across from the shopkeeper. Ichigo stayed standing where he was, near the other door. Hans now had his back to Ichigo, but this didn't seem to bother him in the least as he began to tell his story.

As he spoke, Ichigo could hear a thick accent but wasn't quite sure where it came from. "As Yoruichi has said, I am known as a Jäger. We are a group that has dedicated our lives to tracking down and ridding the human world of the demons known as Druden."

"Druden…" Urahara said. "…Yes, I think I have heard of them. Germanic folklore I believe. Some kind of witch, or demon, correct?"

Hans nodded. "Yes, that is the story. But that is only the human legend. They are demons; there is no mistake about that. But they are not as the myths paint them. They prey upon other humans, usually those with high spiritual energy. They capture them and feed upon their reiatsu. That is their source of food, but it is also their way of reproducing."

"You think that one of these things has taken Ishida!" Ichigo snapped.

Hans glanced over his shoulder at Ichigo but didn't say anything before turning his attention back to Urahara. "I believe it is possible. The Jäger have been tracking a group of Druden in this country. We had thought that they would head for this area next, but we hadn't heard of any reports of missing people yet. That is how we know where they have moved on to. They have to feed so they must take victims. That means a higher number of missing people will be reported in an area."

"So you wait until they kill to track them!" Ichigo snapped.

Hans turned and looked at him again. "There is no other way to track them, boy," he told Ichigo. "Druden have the ability to completely mask not only their own presence, but the presence of their victims as well. The only trail that we can follow is the trail of bodies that they leave behind."

"So, innocent people are killed while you are searching for them? You said that you thought that they would come here, but we haven't seen any of your kind in Karakura! You haven't even begun to look for them, just sat back and waited for bodies to appear or people to go missing. Ishida has been missing for weeks! Why haven't you turned up until now!"

"He is one person," Hans said. "People go missing all the time in a city this size. For all we knew it could have been a hollow attack and that is not our department."

Before Ichigo could snap at Hans again, Urahara spoke up. "So what has changed now? Why do you think that it is Druden now?"

He turned back to Urahara and said, "There have been a few more disappearances in the last two days. Besides that," he glanced up at Yoruichi uncomfortably and then continued. "Once your friend here heard about us, she was pretty insistent that someone head over here and check it out."

Urahara gave a sideways smile but didn't say anything. Ichigo, however, was not done. "So now that more people have probably been attacked, you're going to help us find Ishida! You could have been searching for these creatures all along and we might have found him by now!"

"If we had realized that your friend was a Quincy from the start, we would have been searching earlier," Hans said but didn't turn around to address Ichigo.

"And what does a Quincy have to do with the Druden?" Urahara asked him.

"Quincy originated in the same area as the Druden. They were the preferred prey of the demons in the beginning."

Ichigo gasped and then walked around the table so that he could look the man in the eye as he spoke. "So, the last of the Quincy has gone missing and now you're here. If you knew that they preferred Quincy, why didn't you have someone here in the first place?"

"We didn't know that any Quincy still lived, otherwise we would have," he explained calmly. "We are from a distant part of Soul Society and have not heard about this Quincy until your friend here…" he glanced up at Yoruichi. "…Started asking a lot of questions about them and any enemies that they might have."

Urahara nodded and said, "Yes, I had wondered if his disappearance might have something to do with his Quincy nature. Unfortunately, his father is the only other Quincy that I could talk to and he was not very forthcoming."

"His father?" Hans exclaimed.

"You spoke with Ryuken?" Ichigo said at the same time.

Urahara nodded to both questions. "Yes, but he never took up the mantle of Quincy like his father and son both did. He put as much distance between himself and the Quincy as he could so he had very little insight to offer. Add to that the fact that he finds any discussion involving his son and speaking with a Shinigami, even an ex-Shinigami, very distasteful, and he had nothing useful to tell me."

"So," Yoruichi said, "He sent me to Soul Society to try and dig up as much information as I could."

Hans nodded, "Well, it seems the gamble paid off; at least, for the Jäger anyway."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Ichigo asked.

Hans looked at him hard as he said, "Your friend has been missing for three weeks. There is hardly any chance that he is still alive."

"What?" Ichigo snapped at him.

"I am sorry, boy. He would have been a very useful commodity to us if he were still living. He would have been the perfect bait to use to track down the other Covens of Druden. But the fact he has been missing so long and that more have gone missing recently, means that he must have been killed and others are now needed to supply them with their food source."

Ichigo was so angry with this man that he couldn't even speak. But it turned out that he didn't need to. Urahara completely surprised all of them when he suddenly shot up and was beside Hans, pulling his off of the floor by the front of his shirt. "You are talking about one of our friends as if he were nothing more than a tool in your little war. We have been searching for him all this time, holding onto hope that we will find him alive and bring him back. Now you waltz in here and speak of him like he means nothing and callously speak of his death and expect our help in finding these monsters?"

Hans gasped as he looked into the fire behind Urahara's eyes. Ichigo couldn't believe what he was seeing. He had never seen Urahara lose his temper. Even when he had fought against Aizen, he had kept his cool the entire time. Ichigo had thought that the ex-Shinigami must be completely unflappable the way that he took everything in stride and never got over excited about anything.

"Now, we are going to find our friend, with or without your help," Urahara said to Hans as he released his grip on the man with a shake. Hans stumbled back but didn't dare break eye contact with Urahara. "It is up to you whether you want to be there when we find the Druden or not. But remember this, you will not be using our friend for any of your purposes _when_ we find him alive, or his father. Got it?"

Hans nodded slowly, completely stunned at what had just happened. It was clear that he was not used to being talked to or treated in this way. Urahara didn't look like he could physically compete with this man, but apparently Hans had seen the power behind the shopkeeper's eyes and didn't want to challenge him.

"Good," Urahara said and turned his back on Hans. "Now, where should we begin?"

XXX

Over the next several days Ishida slipped in and out of consciousness. He had been removed from that chair for the first time since he had been captured. When ever he would wake, he found himself in a small room, his hands and feet bound. Not that it really mattered. He not only would have been completely unable to do anything had he been free, but he still didn't know who he was or what had happened to him to do anything about it.

Slowly, though, his mind returned to him as his body also began to recover. Now, sometimes he could remember the reason why whenever he woke up, his face was wet with tears. Sometimes he could remember the reason why he was there. Sometimes he could even remember the reason that he had tried to stay alive for this long.

All the while, his body, which had been so decimated before, started to rejuvenate. Both his mind and body were extremely slow in returning though.

So, it wasn't until just about a week after he had been placed in that room that he finally remembered everything and didn't lose it again. He shuddered and began to weep again when he recalled the experience with Hilda, but that he quickly recovered from now that he knew the reason for his tears. It was when he finally remembered how much he had longed for death during that experience that he truly felt defeated.

As he lay on his side in the tiny, dark room, he thought about why he had tried to stay alive. He had wanted to spare anyone else from having to endure this torment and also he had held onto a sliver of hope that someone was going to come for him.

But now, he knew that that sliver of hope had been taken from him. No one was going to come for him. But that was something he could live with. He still had the desire to keep anyone else from having to go through this. But now that he was able to recall that he had been shut up in this room for probably days, he knew that the Druden probably had been forced to turn to other victims while he recovered.

He couldn't help but think that if he hadn't longed for death when Hilda had attacked him that he wouldn't have been left in such a condition now. If only he had continued to hold on and fight for life. If only he had struggled to maintain his energy rather than wished for it to leave him completely he might have been able to continue to be of use for the women. If that had been the case, no one else would have been needed to fuel their appetites.

It was now because of his moment of weakness and selfishness that others had probably died. Any death because of his failure would be unacceptable, but it would be particularly heinous if anyone of his friends had been made to suffer because of him.

He was left with these thoughts until an entire week had passed. It was then that Hilda returned to him that he truly struggled with his new found resolve to stay alive. Just the sight of that woman was enough for him to think that maybe it would be better that he didn't survive her ministrations. It was the sight of the girl, though, that stood behind the older Druden that truly crushed his spirit.

"Uryuu!" Hilda exclaimed when she stepped into the room and saw him lying there. "Oh, I hope that it's alright that I call you that. I just figured after everything between us, it was time that we dropped formality."

She came up to him and knelt beside him. But Ishida didn't look at her. His eyes were glued on the young girl still standing in the doorway. She had the same figure and round facial shape that Hilda had. But instead of the long, curly chestnut hair of the elder, she had long, straight raven black hair. And, when Ishida looked her in the eye it was as if he were looking into a mirror. Two midnight blue eyes were now locked on his own, staring back without a hint of expression. There was no doubt in Ishida's mind that this was the girl that had been born from the mixture of his and Hilda's spirit.

Hilda glanced over her shoulder at the girl and smiled before looking back at Ishida. "Isn't she beautiful?" she said. "She is the first ever of our kind to be born from just one other's spirit data. We weren't sure what to expect from such a process, but I think she turned out quite lovely."

Ishida didn't respond. He simply stared up at the girl as she stared back at him.

After a moment of silence, Hilda stood up again and said, "Well, I think I'll let you two to get acquainted. Halla is also the first ever of our daughters to be able to meet someone that her spirit came from, let alone the only one that it came from." Hilda laughed a little.

"Oh, Uryuu!" she exclaimed. "I do hope you are all right with the name Halla. I didn't think to ask you, but you probably would have been unable to answer even if I had." With that she turned and walked out of the room, passing her daughter as she left.

Halla took one step further inside and allowed the door to close behind her. Still, neither of them said anything for a long while. "Why do I make you so sad?" she finally asked. Her voice was soft and had a hint of sorrow behind her words.

Ishida continued to look at her a moment before he finally responded, "Because you were born of my spirit, but you are also one of them," he said. It was the first time that he had spoken since the girl's "conception," and the rough grating sound of his voice shocked him.

The girl looked at him a while longer before she came closer and knelt beside him. She reached out and touched a lock of his hair. He tried to pull back from her, but he was already leaning up against the wall and his body was still too weak to respond to him the way that he would have liked. But his reaction was enough to cause her to pull her hand back.

"I…I am sorry," she said as she laid her hand in her lap. "I was curious, you see. None of the others have hair like mine. I just wanted to know if it felt the same."

He stared at her, wondering what was up with her. She wasn't like the others. She seemed almost… almost human…

"Halla-san," he finally said to her. "Are you sad as well?"

She licked her lips and then slowly nodded as she replied, "Yes, I believe I am."

Ishida was stunned. Sadness, he was pretty sure, was not an emotion that these women possessed. "Why?"

She swallowed and then slowly reached out again and gently placed a finger on his hair. He didn't pull back this time. She spoke very softly as she rubbed that strand of hair between her thumb and forefinger. "I think I am sad because of what has been done to you," she said. "The others, they do not think of you as anything other than food. But you were what gave me life. I would not be me if it were not for you."

Ishida swallowed hard at her words. In a way, this result was far worse than if she had turned out just as blood thirsty as the other Druden. Now it appeared that she had a conscience but she was still a Druden. She would be forced to kill in order to feed and, eventually, reproduce. But the part of her that was from him would despise her for those actions.

A fresh tear rolled down Ishida's face as he realized that, if any of his friends ever did find him, she would have to be killed along with the other Druden to keep other humans from harm.

At the sight of his tear, Halla released his hair and then stood up. "I am sorry," she said to him. "I think I know why it is that this has made you even sadder. You see that I am not like the others, and yet, I am…"

She sighed and then turned away. "Ishida Uryuu," she said when she reached the door but didn't turn back to look at him. "Do not grieve for or because of me… and do not lose hope."

She opened the door then and walked out, allowing it to close behind her. But, despite her words, Ishida felt a tremendous wave of sorrow and the last of his hope that he didn't even know he still had evaporated.

A/n: Thanks for reading and sticking with it. Come back next week for the exciting conclusion!


	3. Chapter 3

A/n: This is it! Thanks for reading and reviewing. I hope you all enjoyed it!

Chapter 3

Urahara stood on top of one of the taller rocks off in the corner of his underground training ground. He watched as Ichigo battled against the fiercest of rocks that littered the training grounds. The substitute Shinigami had come down there earlier when he needed to work off some of his frustration before he took it out on Hans. Ichigo knew that they couldn't afford to chase the Jäger away, but the lack of results in the last two weeks was driving him mad.

The shopkeeper sighed as he watched yet another giant rock formation disintegrated under Ichigo's Getsuga Tensho. That last one, though, seemed to finally have brought the young man back under control. He slumped to the ground and sat with his back against some of the rubble from his temper tantrum. Urahara descended and approached him.

"Feel better?" he asked Ichigo.

Ichigo looked up at Urahara and glared at him a moment before he sighed, realizing that Urahara was not the person with whom he was angry. "No," he said as he lowered his head again. "But I'm worn out enough now that I doubt I'll take Hans's head from him when I see him again."

"Well that would be good," Urahara said as he took a seat beside Ichigo on the ground.

They sat in silence for a while before Ichigo finally spoke again. "Is it even possible that he's still alive?"

"Yes, in fact I think that it is likely," Urahara said quickly, surprising Ichigo. Urahara looked at him and then leaned back against the rock before he spoke again towards the sky-like ceiling. "According to our expert Druden hunter, a normal human will feed a group of about five or six Druden for one day; that is the size that he believes we are dealing with. We know that our girls have been taking humans with slightly higher than normal energy, so let's say they might give them two days."

"Yeah, but that seems to mean that Ishida couldn't possibly be alive now after over a month."

"You're not thinking this through, Ichigo," Urahara admonished. "We know that, last week, a total of four people went missing. Those are the only other four that have gone missing without some other explanation since we lost our friend. But since then, it has been almost a whole week with no other people vanishing."

"So?" Ichigo asked.

"So, it seems that our Quincy friend was enough for the Druden to feed off of for those first three weeks and then, for what ever reason, they stopped using him for a week. Four missing would mean about eight days of food, but it's been fourteen now. They must have switched back to Ishida again, meaning they haven't had the need to take anyone else."

Ichigo sat there in stunned silence for a moment. It made sense. Urahara usually did after all. The feeling of hopelessness suddenly lift from his chest. But it was quickly replaced with the same dread that he had been dealing with ever since the Quincy's disappearance. He clenched his fists as he thought about what it meant that Ishida was probably still alive. "So that means that they are still feeding on him," Ichigo said softly but with a hint of rage behind his words.

Urahara nodded, "Yes, that is the only way that he could still be alive is if he is still useful to them. It is a difficult thing, isn't it?" Urahara sighed and then stood up. "Knowing he is probably still alive gives hope, but also knowing that he is probably suffering because of that hope is almost as bad as believing him to be gone."

Urahara turned then and walked away. Ichigo sat there a while, wondering what he should be hoping for. Was it wrong for him to wish that Ishida was still alive if that meant that he would have to suffer any longer? He didn't want to lose his friend, but he didn't want him to suffer any longer either. The Quincy had been missing for over a month now. When was it too long to expect your friend to hang on to life in the face of torment?

XXX

The day after Hilda introduced Ishida to Halla, Ishida was brought back to the chair and the metal restraints for put in place again. Everything started back in again. But this time, instead of the other women tending him, it seemed Halla was the one put in charge.

She seemed to be far more attentive to his needs than any of the other women. She also seemed to want to sit and talk to him, though Ishida wasn't able to offer much in way of conversation. Mostly she just told him of what she had learned about her people and how they were worried about her because she didn't seem to fit in with them.

"They have not said anything," Halla said once. "But I am sure they have realized that I have not drunk since they returned you to the chair."

Ishida cracked his tired eyes open a moment and looked at her. He closed his eyes again before saying, "Is it because it is me? It doesn't make sense to stop drinking just because I am the one that the reiatsu comes from. They will still drain me and kill me whether or not you drink. You are only weakening yourself until the time comes that someone else takes my place."

She was quite a moment before she spoke again. "No, I do not think that is just you. It is seeing you like this that has made me realize how horrible the whole thing is. I do not ever want to be the cause for this suffering, to anyone."

Ishida opened his eyes again and looked into hers. It was still extremely unnerving to be looking into his own eyes whenever he did this. "Then you have a problem, Halla-san. Because if you don't feed, then you will die."

She sighed and shook her head, "No, as long as I am a part of this Coven, I will not. We are all connected to our Mistress. As long as she is strong, we will all be sustained. But I do not know if I want that either. It still means that I survive off of another's suffering."

It was another few days before Halla decided to speak with Ishida again. "Who is Kurosaki?" she asked him suddenly.

His eyes opened and looked at her, wondering how she could have heard that name. He feared that maybe the others had found out about him and were planning on trying to take him too. Halla saw the fear in his eyes and she quickly told him, "It is just, before we had actually met, I had come into your room a few times when you were sleeping and I heard you mention that name. I was just curious."

Ishida felt a rush of relief as he allowed his eyes to slide shut again. "He is… a friend," Ishida said. After a long pause he added even quieter, "Someone I had once hoped would come for me."

"You no longer have that hope?"

"No," he whispered softly.

It was several more days later that Halla suddenly appeared beside him. He cracked open his eyes as she laid her hand gently across his cheek. "Uryuu," she spoke softly to him, her face close to his. "Uryuu, I have to tell you something," she said with more urgency.

He forced his eyes open all the way and looked up at her. She had never been this close to him before and he was surprised that he didn't fear this close contact as he did with any of the other women. "Uryuu," she said again. "I have to go out. There is something that I need to do. But I wanted to let you know something before I go."

"Halla-san?" he breathed, wondering what she could possibly be going on about. She had never seemed this upset before. Even when she had spoken of how she didn't agree with the Druden's way of life, she had never appeared this emotional about anything.

"Uryuu, I want to let you know that, no matter what happens today, I swear that I will never harm another. I need you to know this. I will not be a part to this anymore."

"Halla-san? What are you saying?"

She stared him in the eye as if trying to make him believe what she was saying. "I promise you, no matter what happens…" She leaned up then and planted a very soft kiss on his forehead.

Before Ishida knew what had happened, she was gone again. The clank of the metal door resounded through the room, signaling that he had been left alone again.

XXX

Ichigo lay in bed staring up at the ceiling above him. Despite the fact that he was extremely exhausted, he could not sleep. His friends had made him go home to get some rest when he had begun to snap at all of them again. He knew that he didn't mean anything that he said, but he couldn't help it. His nerves had been completely frayed for a month and a half now and there was no end in sight.

He had hoped that, once Hans had showed up with some answers, they would actually make some progress. But it seemed that the Jäger only knew how to track their prey by following a body trail and that had been severely lacking in this case. Without a trail to follow, they hadn't gotten any closer to finding Ishida than before they knew who had taken him.

Suddenly he heard a soft click on the glass of the window beside his bed. He sat up quickly, thinking that it might be Inoue coming to tell him that there was some news. But he was shocked to see a girl that he had never seen before standing outside below his window. "Kurosaki?" she spoke softly to him when he poked his head out the window and looked down.

"Yes?" he replied and then jumped out and landed on the ground beside her.

"You are a friend of Ishida Uryuu?" she asked.

Ichigo suddenly grabbed his badge but didn't use it just yet. "Who are you?" he demanded.

There was something familiar about this girl but he was sure that he had never seen her before. There was something about her, though, that made him think of their lost friend. It wasn't just the black hair and blue eyes either… it was something more.

"I have come to take you to him," she said softly.

He quickly used his badge then to transform into his Shinigami form. He pulled his sword from his back with one hand before he grabbed her wrist with the other. "How do you know where he is?" he said darkly to her.

"Because, I am a Druden," she said even more softly.

XXX

Ishida stirred when he heard the door squeak open again. He had been rather troubled with what Halla had said to him before she had left. For some reason, he was worried for her. She was partly the reason that he was in this position in the first place but he couldn't help but feel for her. He knew that it was because that half of her spirit came from him that she was having such a hard time accepting what had always been for her people. It was because of him that she loathed who she was.

"Halla-san?" he asked softly, thinking that it was her returning that he had heard.

"Sorry, Quincy. Your daughter has gone out," a voice replied.

A cold shiver of fear ran through his spine when he saw it was the youngest Druden, Valorie. It wasn't the fact that she was there and not Halla, but it was that look in her eyes that he easily recognized. It was the same hungry look that Hilda had when she had come to him before.

"Halla was sent out on her first hunting trip," Valorie explained as she came over to stand beside Ishida. "You see, we're fairly certain that you won't have quite enough in you for what I have planned."

Ishida's breath quickened as she began to slowly undo the clasps at his wrists. "Why risk killing me?" he asked. "I thought I was what you wanted?"

"You're finally drying up," she said as she reached up and undid the brace over his forehead. "And we have come to realize that using a single soul is not how we were meant to survive. There is something wrong with Halla because of you. She isn't right. I'll take all that is left from you and she will bring me another soul or two. That is how this should be done. Too much of one soul dilutes the mother's."

She reached down and unclasped his ankles then. He stared at her in horror as she turned again then and advanced towards him, the look of need filling her eyes. "Relax, Quincy. Your time of suffering is finally about to come to an end." She said as she pushed the arm rests up out of her way.

"No," he said. He hated that the word sounded almost like a whimper to his own ears. He swallowed and tried again. "No," he spoke with a little more force. "I will give you what you want. Please, don't hurt anyone else… Don't make her hurt anyone else…"

Valorie paused and stared at him a moment before smiling. "You are worried about Halla, aren't you?" she said. "How sweet. But she is one of us and this is what she was born to do. There is nothing that you can do for her, or anyone else, anymore." She swung her leg over him and straddling his chest. She was just reaching up to take a hold of his head when the door suddenly opened with a clang.

She looked over at the entrance and snapped, "Halla!"

"I am sorry for interrupting," Halla's soft voice said. "But I have brought you another victim." Ishida could just see a black clothed body draped over Halla's shoulder from where he was pinned.

"No…" Ishida muttered but Valorie wasn't listening to him and Halla didn't seem to hear him either.

"Throw him over there," Valorie said with a wave of her hand towards the corner. "I'll get to him when I have finished here."

She turned back and reached for Ishida's head again. "Valorie…" Halla's voice spoke again.

"What is it!" she snapped and looked back towards Halla.

She found herself staring at the black clad chest of Ichigo. "Get off of him," the Substitute Shinigami growled before he backhanded her so hard she was tossed across the room to slam into the opposite wall.

"Kurosaki?" Ishida said, not even believing his eyes or ears. He was sure that Valorie must have already begun and this was the image that his dying mind was giving him.

"It's me, Ishida," Ichigo said as he looked down at him. "Hold on all right? We're going to get you out of here."

Suddenly Ichigo was gone but Halla had replaced him. Now Ishida knew that he must be dreaming. Ichigo would never leave him with one of his captors. He had to be hallucinating.

"Uryuu," Halla said. "I am sorry I was so late. I am going to get you out of here while your friend distracts the others." She placed an arm behind his back and sat him up. Then, taking his belt with the Seele Schneider on it off of the table beside the chair, she wrapped it around his waist and cinched it as tight as it would go. Even at the tightest, it was still quite loose on him. She then slipped his Quincy cross onto his right wrist. She reached down then and pulled Ishida's arm over her shoulders and lifted him off of the chair.

As he was lifted up, he caught sight of Ichigo advancing on a recovering Valorie across the room. "Kurosaki," Halla called over to him. "Remember what I told you about their nails."

"Yeah, I got it," he said as he pointed his sword at the Druden.

"You bitch," Valorie called out to Halla. "We knew there was something wrong with you. We just never imagined that one of our own could turn against us."

"I am sorry, Val, but I cannot live like this and I cannot condone it either," Halla said and then turned away from her and began to head for the exit with Ishida draped over her shoulders.

Suddenly the door burst open and the Mistress was standing there. Behind her the other four Druden loomed. "What is this, Halla?" she said darkly.

"Mistress…" Halla said, coming up short and staring at the woman with an edge of terror in her eyes.

Ichigo heard Halla and spun around. He knew from information he had gotten from Hans that the best way to take out a Coven was to kill the Mistress. All of the others drew their power from her. The Druden behind him forgotten, Ichigo turned completely around and drew his blade back. "Getsuga Ten…" he said. But he never got to finish the incantation or send the deadly burst of energy at the leader.

He suddenly felt five sharp talons sink into his back. Instantly, all of his muscles locked up on him and his blade clattered to the floor from his unresponsive grip. Halla gasped and turned around to see him fall.

"Kurosaki!" Ishida gasped as he saw his friend fall as well. In a split second, Valorie had pulled Ichigo onto his back and was now astride him.

Ichigo wasn't quite as paralyzed as expected, however. He was struggling against the paralysis by evidence of his fists opening and closing and one knee fighting to bend. But it wasn't enough.

"You're strong," Valorie cooed as she lowered her face to Ichigo's. Her hands ran up into his hair. "Nice hunting, Halla," she said and then stabbed her fingers into Ichigo's head. He cried out and tried to grab her. He managed to get his arm up to her arm, but couldn't manage to actually pull her free.

"Val, Please, stop!" Halla cried as she started to turn around towards them.

"No Halla," the Mistress said. "You stop."

Suddenly Halla cried out in pain and crumpled to the ground, taking Ishida with her. "Halla-san!" he gasped as he hit the floor. She rolled onto her side and curled in on herself. "What are you doing to her?" Ishida said as he craned his head to look at the Mistress.

"I have cut her off from me. She has been surviving on what I have given her the last two weeks since she has refused to drink on her own. I will no longer keep a worthless girl like her alive."

A muffled cry from Ichigo reached Ishida's ears then. He struggled to see what was happening and he was horrified to see that Valorie was locked on his lips, draining him the same way that Hilda had done to him. "No," he croaked and tried to move, but he couldn't do it. He was going to be forced to lie there and watch that woman suck the life right out of his friend.

"Uryuu…" he heard Halla whisper. He looked at her and saw that she was moving towards him. She was clearly in pain and growing weaker by the moment, but she managed to collapse beside him. "Uryuu, I am so sorry. I never meant to get your friend hurt too."

"Halla-san," he said to her in a pleading voice. "Please, don't let this happen." He winced as he heard another scream of agony from Ichigo followed by a gasp of ecstasy from Valorie.

Halla looked into Ishida's eyes and then blinked slowly before she leaned up to him. Her face hovered just above him as she whispered, "I give back to you what I have taken." She breathed gently onto his parted lips then. A blue light fell from her lips and passed into his. Suddenly she cried out in pain and collapsed to the ground at the same time Ishida gasped as he felt a rush of energy through his body that he had been lacking for so long now.

He wasn't recovered by any means, but there was enough strength now for him to do what had to be done. "What…?" he heard the Mistress say as he suddenly got up onto on knee.

"Your time is over, Mistress," Ishida said to her as he held his right hand out towards her. His bow formed in the space between them and it was quickly loaded with a Seele Schneider. "Call Valorie off or I will kill you," he said.

She smiled at him. "You couldn't shoot that thing in your condition. And even if you did, that is the last of your energy and it would kill you. Tell me, is it really worth your life?"

"Yes," he said and then released his hold on the bladed arrow. It shot true and went straight through the Druden's heart.

Ishida fell over in a faint the moment that he released the shot so he didn't see the woman fall to the ground, dead instantly, without a sound. He didn't hear the terrible cries of pain from the other Druden as they also fell, unable to stand without the strength of their Mistress to support them.

Ichigo finally was able to wrench the woman off of him. He rolled over and knelt there on his hands and knees, gasping. He knew that he was extremely lucky that he had such an unusually high spirit pressure. Otherwise he would probably be dead already. As it was, he felt weakened, but not incapacitated.

He looked across the room and saw that the rest of the Druden were falling. One by one, their eyes closed and they breathed their last. Finally, his eyes fell on Ishida. He had fallen over top of Halla when he had collapsed. Now the two of them were lying there, unmoving.

"Ishida," Ichigo said as he got to his feet and staggered over to his friend. He bent over and lifted the Quincy off of the girl. He didn't stir, but Ichigo could see that he was still breathing. "You look like hell, Ishida," Ichigo said as he lifted his friend up and slung him over his shoulder. He was about to leave when he heard a soft moan from Halla.

He paused and looked down at her. He had expected her to have died along with the rest of the Druden. She had told him that she expected as much. "Halla?" he asked as he knelt beside her.

She moaned again as her eyes flickered open. She looked up at Ichigo and asked, "How..?"

"I don't know," Ichigo said. "Can you walk?" she moved again and then slowly sat up. Ichigo offered her a hand and helped her up to her feet. She was a bit unsteady, but she managed to remain standing.

"Halla," Ichigo said to her. "You saved both Ishida's life and my own. You are welcome to come back with us."

She looked up at him and then over at the unconscious Ishida. "I will come with you for now," she said. "But I am not sure where I will go from there."

Ichigo nodded to her and then led them out of the room, leaving the pile of bodies of the Druden behind.

XXX

It was several days later that Halla suddenly woke with a start. Something was different than it had been when she had fallen asleep. She had lain down on a mat beside the sleeping Ishida and had only closed her eyes for a moment, never meaning to fall asleep.

Ishida had been unconscious ever since they had brought him back. The strange man, Urahara, had done something to transfer some of her spirit into Ishida. He had said that it shouldn't be enough to harm her but it would do everything for him.

But Halla wondered if maybe the man hadn't taken enough because Ishida just didn't wake up. The Kurosaki boy was often there, waiting for his friend to wake, but was usually sent home to get some sleep by either the girl, Inoue, that was often there or the shopkeeper.

Halla like Inoue and she could see why Ishida had spoken of her in his sleep. She hadn't told the Quincy that he had mentioned the girl because she had felt that that was a name that he didn't want anyone to know had been on his lips. But Halla could see that this quiet, kind girl was exactly what the Quincy needed in his life.

As Halla sat up, she realized what it was that had changed in the room. Ishida was sitting up beside her, rather than lying still and cold under the blankets as he had done for the last several days. "Uryuu?" she asked softly.

"Halla-san," he said without looking at her. "What happened?"

"You killed the Mistress," she said. "Your friend brought us both back here to this shop."

He slowly turned and looked at her. "Why didn't you die as well?" he asked. She could tell that he was having difficulty processing everything. She wondered if maybe he feared that he had lost his mind and was imagining her there. He had known when he fired that arrow that it was supposed to kill her as well. It had been the hardest shot that he had ever made because of that.

"I am not sure," Halla said. "Your friend, Urahara, thought that it might be because the Mistress had already cut me off from her before you fired the shot. But being cut off should have killed me anyway…"

"So then…?"

"I think that it is because of you," she finally replied. "I am more of you than them. It was half your spirit that created me, but then I was drawing the energy from the Mistress that was taken from you. Everyday my soul became more like yours and less like theirs."

He stared at her as he tried to process it all. If what she was saying was true, then she was nearly human by now.

"Uryuu," she said quickly. "I stayed here to make sure that you would be all right. Urahara used some of my spirit to bring you back. I was afraid that you might need more. But now that you are awake, I am going to leave."

"Halla-san… why? Where will you go?"

She shook her head, "I am not sure. But I know that I must leave. I have to find out exactly who I am. I was born a Druden, but a large part of me is you. I do not think I am really a Quincy, but I think I have much of the characteristics of your clan. But if I stay here, with you, I won't be able to explore everything that I am. I need to know what I really feel and think for myself. Do you understand?"

Ishida looked at her a long while before he slowly nodded. "Yes, I think I do," he said softly.

"Thank you for understanding, Uryuu," she said to him as she stood up. "The promise I made to you still stands," she told him. "I swear I will never harm another. It turns out that I do not need to feed off of reiatsu to stay alive. It is true that I am not as strong now that I have been cut off from such a diet, but I can survive."

"You are leaving now?" he asked her.

She nodded, "I think that it would be best. There is a Jäger here and he has been very suspicious of me. Kurosaki and the others haven't told him anything, but he suspects. I don't think that he would allow me to live even if I have changed if he knew for sure who I am."

"We wouldn't let him hurt you," Ishida told her.

She smiled at him and said, "I know that, but I do not want you to have to protect me. I should just leave."

She knelt down in front of him again and then quickly pulled him into a hug. "Thank you, Uryuu. I literally owe everything to you." With that she released him and quickly retreated from the room, leaving Ishida sitting there alone in the dark.

XXX

"Welcome back to the land of the living!" Ichigo exclaimed as he entered and found Ishida sitting up, reading a book.

Ishida glanced up from his book and looked at Ichigo standing in front of him in his Shinigami form. "Are you sure I'm still alive?" he asked. "You're the second Shinigami that I have seen today." He returned his attention to his book as Ichigo took a seat beside him.

"Second?" he asked.

"Kuchiki-san had come over for a few minutes when she heard that I was awake. She said she couldn't stay though and returned to Soul Society right away." Ishida glanced up over the edge of his book at Ichigo in time to see him frown. He pretended not to have noticed and continued reading.

They sat like that for a while before Ichigo finally broke the silence. "Ishida…"

"I don't want to discuss this, Kurosaki," he said quickly.

Ichigo stared at him, stunned a moment before he pressed on. "But, Ishida, I… You…" he sighed and then pushed out what he wanted to say. "I couldn't help you. I tried… I really did, but I failed you. After even a few moments of experiencing a part of what you went through… I am truly sorry."

Ishida sighed and closed his book before he looked Ichigo in the eye for the first time. "None of it was your fault, Kurosaki. You tried to find me. I heard all about it from Sado and Inoue-san earlier. I am not your responsibility."

"But you expected me to find you," Ichigo finally said.

Ishida narrowed his eyes at Ichigo a moment before he asked, "Did Halla-san tell you that?"

Ichigo nodded.

"Yes, it is true," Ishida finally admitted as he picked up and opened his book again. "It was hope that you would find me that kept me going for a while. But that doesn't mean that I am your responsibility. It just means that I have become too reliant on you. I should never have become so complacent."

Ichigo stared at Ishida with a wide mouth, not sure if he could respond to that. "Ishida… I don't think of you as my responsibility. I think of you as a friend. I know that if anything happened to me, you would also do your best to help. There is no such thing as becoming _too_ reliant on ones friends… that's what they are there for."

Ishida seemed to ignore what Ichigo just said for a minute before he finally lowered his book again and looked at the substitute Shinigami. "Thank you, Kurosaki. I was wrong to say that. I know that you are my friend. I just am not sure how to take this whole experience. It is going to take me a while to recover in more than just regaining my strength."

Ichigo nodded and said, "I understand. Just know that we are all here to help you through this." Ichigo stood up then and started to head for the door.

"Thank you, again… Ichigo… Thank you for not giving up on me." Ichigo paused a moment at the door and then turned and smiled at Ishida.

"You're welcome, Uryuu. I'm just glad that you decided to stay with us." he said and slid the door open and left Ishida to his own turbulent thoughts.

He stared ahead for a moment, thinking to himself. "I hope you find what you are looking for, Halla-san," he finally muttered before picking up his book.


End file.
